1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates broadly to systems and methods of surveillance, and particularly to surveillance of vehicles.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, auto theft costs the nation close to eight billion dollars per year. Even without factoring in the cost of higher insurance rates, the victim's loss of productivity, the impact on legitimate auto parts vendors, manufacturers, mechanics, and the concurrent loss of tax revenue on those services and products, motor vehicle theft is the most expensive property crime in the United States. On-going efforts to address this crime drain our law enforcement system, insurance companies, and other economic resources. Of the 1.17 million automobiles stolen nation-wide in the year 2000, only 14 percent of these crimes were closed by arrest.
Both professional and non-professional thieves commit vehicle theft. The non-professional steals for joy riding, other criminal activity, and transportation. The vehicles stolen by the non-professional thieves are often damaged and usually recovered. Task forces and routine patrol are used to catch these thieves. These methods typically require officers to remember license plates and descriptions of stolen vehicles, identify the vehicle regardless of whether it is parked or being driven, recall the information, and pursue the vehicle. An officer cannot observe every, or even the majority of vehicles he or she passes while on patrol. Additionally, the officer must address other events while on patrol and cannot devote all time and effort on patrol to looking for stolen vehicles.
The professional thief steals vehicles for shipment out of the country via ports and to deliver to chop shops for resale of total vehicles and parts. Professional thieves commit roughly thirty five percent of all auto thefts. Chop-shops are defined as the process of disassembling autos and destroying or disguising the identity of the vehicle or its parts so that it can be resold. These vehicles are rarely recovered. Not recovering vehicles leaves law enforcement at a distinct disadvantage to obtain information and evidence necessary to solve the crimes. The primary tool for gathering information is the confidential informant. Based on information supplied by informants, law enforcement runs undercover operations to catch the thieves. This tool leaves law enforcement to solve the problem mostly from a reactive state, as they must rely on time and labor-intensive detective work, obtaining informants, and the motivation for the informants.
Part of finding the professional thief involves locating chop shops, where stolen vehicles are painted, given license plates, or otherwise altered to sell the vehicle, or taken apart to sell spare parts. Thousands of vehicles may be stolen in any jurisdiction over a year's time. Moreover, a vehicle is often stolen from one part of town, taken to a chop shop in another part of town and disassembled for parts, or loaded onto a container and sent overseas. Law enforcement does not have any available tool to analyze the stolen vehicle data. More particularly, there is additionally no tool available for using stolen vehicle data to help locate chop shops.
There is little assistance available to law enforcement to make arrests in motor vehicle theft cases and subsequently deter further thefts. The absence of tools for gathering and analyzing information about stolen vehicles severely limits the ability of law enforcement to deter, decrease, or prevent this criminal activity. Moreover, currently in 2002, there are approximately 19,000 police departments in the United States. Without a uniform system of gathering and analyzing stolen vehicle information, it is difficult for police departments to work together on such cases.
Some systems have previously been proposed. The use of cameras in law enforcement is well known. Basic image processing systems are used at tollbooths and traffic lights, and to record the license plate of a speeding vehicle. However, such systems treat the observed vehicle in isolation, and do not relate the vehicle to a previous activity record. These systems further do not use a mobile camera in the pursuit of detection of criminal offenses occurring in real time. Current systems do not take a proactive approach, as they catch offenders only after a minor crime (traffic violation) has been committed. The system also has to address the needs of law enforcement; it must be fast, invisible, and utilize timely data if it is to provide any needed service.
Although the current systems and methods function well for their provided task, the devices do not provide users with a comparison to existing stolen vehicle databases. These systems and methods do not provide spatial analysis for recognizing traffic patterns of stolen vehicles. Further, these systems and methods do not provide tools for catching both the professional and non-professional thief.